Innovation

Empower disrupts the $300B+ behavioral & mental health market by leveraging the accessibility and economics of the internet. Traditionally, sufferers have been limited to inconvenient and expensive approaches based on pharmacology and talk therapy. Modern web capabilities - both in security and user interface design - enable us to provide a engaging and impactful experience to those looking for help.

Do you have a patent for this idea?

No

Impact

The head of our clinical advisory board, Dr. Jesse Wright, MD, PhD, has positively impacted thousands of people who suffer from depression via his predecessor DVD program, Good Days Ahead (GDA). Our new online platform will provide an even more accessible and user friendly experience to many more people.

Problem

Treating anxiety and depression is expensive and inaccessible, due to issues of stigma, location, convenience, and trust. The two primary mechanisms for treatment, pharmacology and talk therapy, are expensive and fraught with issues including logistics (for talk therapy) and side effects (for pharmacology). Those who chose not to get treated negatively impact their quality of life and reduce their productivity for their employers. People deserve more accessible, secure, and convenient solutions to benefit from the evidence-based skills of modern psychotherapy.

Actions

We are moving forward in product, customer and partner efforts.
- Product development: continuing to develop our online platform
- Customer development: ongoing pilots and discussions with several large public and private entities
- Partner development: finding and partnering with complementary products and projects to further our distribution

Results

The results of these actions will include a complete first version of our online platform and several successful deployments, resulting in the program's broad use.

What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.

All Years:
- Retention and recruiting of key team members (clinicians, designers, developers, sales, business development)
- Broad deployment at a significant entity
- Financial support to supplement revenues as needed

What would prevent your project from being a success?

Delays in any of the above success factors.

How many people will your project serve annually?

More than 10,000

What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?

The Story

I was exploring innovations in cognitive and brain sciences and came across the existing research on successfully adapting cognitive behavioral therapy to software to create cost-effective, accessible outcomes for sufferers of depression and anxiety - massive problems for our society, for individuals and as a whole. Our team realized we could combine this research with cutting edge persuasive technology design to create highly compelling yet inexpensive tools that could help millions of people.